Elaine Pearson was one of only two women in the field.	Chris Yaure and Rob Flowers roll thru the ages.

Attendance rose again as the event continues establishing itself as a good reason to appear for Pre-Con Sunday. With a third heat added to the mix, we had three triple winners and ten double winners leaving just three semi-final seats for single heat winners who could also claim a close second. 2010 champ Randy Buehler and fellow 2011 finalist Zvi Mowshowitz ran the table in the three heats as did. Sceadeau d'Tela. Sceadeau introduced the game to his group (the Greenspielers) less than a year ago and they managed to claim four of the semi-final slots and half of the laurels.

All three triple winners won their fourth straight game in the semi's to advance and were joined by a third 2011 finalist: Andrew Emerick (whose only heat loss was to Randy). The early turns were fairly even, with everyone placing a high priority on the military track and all three copies of Knights going for multiple civil actions. Randy also paid multiple actions for Warfare, though it sat in his hand for quite a while because an early Iron fell to him for one action when he had six rocks on his board to immediately promote two bronze workers. Those iron workers also helped feed his people thanks to a very effective Trade Agreement pact with Zvi.

The game was all but decided as Age 1 turned into Age 2. Randy had already built a Theologist just because he needed a source of happiness and he was able to draft and build St Peter's Basilica on the last turn of Age 1 just because it's good. Michaelangelo turned out to be one of the last two Age 1 cards off the deck, and it slid down to one action just as Randy began his first Age 2 turn, which was a doozy: Draft Michaelangelo, Play Michaelangelo, Increase Population, Build Theologist. This gave Randy a culture rate of 12 per turn, and since he had spent most of Age 1 building military he was also the strongest.

Age 2 saw everyone trying to get ahead of Randy militaristically, but he drew four defense cards and a Classic Army. Once a fully powered Classic Army and two scientific method workers were in play, the other players concluded one by one that they were actually playing for second. Randy transitioned to Napoleon as Age 3 started just to make sure he stayed on top of the military track, and built Eiffel Tower to keep his culture rate high.

The battle for second was very close. Andrew had fallen behind in the middle game, but with everyone ignoring him (other than to offer him Pacts) he stitched his game back together thanks in large part to a speculative Columbus who eventually discovered Fertile Territory II. (When you know you're behind, playing to give yourself opportunities to get lucky is often the right play.) An unfortunately timed Rats event cost Sceadeau two population worth of food, and as a result he fell behind on military and got successfully aggressed by all three players before his next turn. Zvi seemed to be sitting pretty, but when Andrew got to build First Space Flight and Sceadeau got to build Fast Food Chains it became very close. With one Impact left to be revealed at the end of the game only one point separated all three. Impact of Population then gave Zvi second, gave Andrew a third that no one thought he could manage earlier, and showed that Sceadeau's military woes were in fact too much to overcome no matter how gamely he fought. Randy outran the field with 188 points followed by Zui with 125, Andrew 122 and Sceadeau 115.

Overall, it was a well-played Final with Randy piloting his way through the early turns to a comfortable lead that was never really threatened. In so doing, he ran his WBC record in the game to 12-1. Michaelangelo was the winning strategy for the second year in a row, though the route Randy took to get there was very different than the more "all-in" strategy piloted by Jason Ley to win in 2011.

Eric Freeman and Sceadeau D'Tela who appears afraid of cameras.	The triumphant finalists.